Bluff with a combo draw, am I hitting the right sizings? (2 Viewers)

TheDogg

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Action folds to Hero (92BB stack) on button with Kd9d, who opens to 3BB Villain (SB, covers hero) 3 bets to 12.5BB, BB folds, Hero calls.

Reads on Villain: we're a new group of quarantine poker players. We've played around 400-500 hands together over 8-9 sessions. Villain is constantly improving his game, and has gone from wild sizings and bluffs to a pretty tight value range with standard sizings, and has added preflop bluffs to his game over the previous 2 sessions.

Flop comes out Qc 10d 6d. Pot is 26 BB.
Hero picks up a flush draw and a gutshot. Villain checks. Hero figures if he doesn't bluff this hand he doesn't know what he bluffs and bets 17.5 BB, and villain tanks for a long time and calls.

I'm confident this is a premium bluffing hand, as I not only have the flush draw and the gutshot but I also block Villain from being able to continue with diamonds or a straight draw as well. What I'm not confident in is the sizing, I think the size is too high but I'm not sure I understand the logic to bring it down. I would personally bet the same size with top pair high kicker/2 pair/sets to charge draws, so I think keeping the same sizes to keep my bluff/value sizes consistent would make sense.

Pot is now 61BB, Hero has a 62BB stack. Turn comes out 2s, which is a brick, and Villain checks.
Hero still has a flush draw and gutshot, and figures this is still a premium bluffing hand. Looking at the stack to pot ratios, hero believes all in is the only bluff size, and decides to go all in, which would have to be balanced by 2pair/sets that are still super premium hands.

Given the stack to pot ratios, is there anything you guys would have played differently? I've realized a lot of my sizings are above standard so I'm curious to know what the logic is for bringing them down. I'm getting a lot of folds on my value hands, but I'm getting a lot of folds for my bluffs as well.
 
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Given how you played it, turn jam is about the only play that makes sense.

However, I'd argue you are too shallow, even with position, to call pre with K9s to the 4x 3 bet.
 
What do we know about Villain? How often does he 3-bet and with what range?
Villain 3 bets fairly often over the last two session, maybe 1 in every 8-10 hands. He showed A5s after a 3 bet earlier in the session, so I know he has a 3 bet bluffing range.
 
Given how you played it, turn jam is about the only play that makes sense.

However, I'd argue you are too shallow, even with position, to call pre with K9s to the 4x 3 bet.
I figure a 4x 3 bet is about standard for a small blind to fold out the big blind and out of position.

I've been going off Jonathan little's charts, and it seems like for 2.5x sizings K9s is in the smack dab middle of the calling range,. Doing the calculations against 4x BB raise, I think I'm supposed to fold about 40% of my hands here? I think K9s is in the top 60% of my range, but it may be on the edge.
 
Flop comes out Qc 10d 6d. Pot is 26 BB.
Hero picks up a flush draw and a gutshot. Villain checks. Hero figures if he doesn't bluff this hand he doesn't know what he bluffs and bets 17.5 BB, and villain tanks for a long time and calls.

I'm confident this is a premium bluffing hand, as I not only have the flush draw and the gutshot but I also block Villain from being able to continue with diamonds or a straight draw as well. What I'm not confident in is the sizing, I think the size is too high but I'm not sure I understand the logic to bring it down. I would personally bet the same size with top pair high kicker/2 pair/sets to charge draws, so I think keeping the same sizes to keep my bluff/value sizes consistent would make sense.

I like the 3/4 pot size. I think the more connected the board is the larger we need to size our bets.

Pot is now 61BB, Hero has a 62BB stack. Turn comes out 2s, which is a brick, and Villain checks.
Hero still has a flush draw and gutshot, and figures this is still a premium bluffing hand. Looking at the stack to pot ratios, hero believes all in is the only bluff size, and decides to go all in, which would have to be balanced by 2pair/sets that are still super premium hands.

Given the stack to pot ratios, is there anything you guys would have played differently? I've realized a lot of my sizings are above standard so I'm curious to know what the logic is for bringing them down. I'm getting a lot of folds on my value hands, but I'm getting a lot of folds for my bluffs as well.

I dont know if youre getting AQ to fold here but I do like the jam. I dont think you have another bet size given the SPR.
 
I think I'm betting something like 10bb on that flop with the equity you have. On the turn card you're setup for either an overbet shove which is going to give him a worse price to call with something like JJ or AK, or you can check back in position and realize all of your equity on the river keeping from putting your stack at risk.
 
I think I'm betting something like 10bb on that flop with the equity you have. On the turn card you're setup for either an overbet shove which is going to give him a worse price to call with something like JJ or AK, or you can check back in position and realize all of your equity on the river keeping from putting your stack at risk.
Interesting, when we bet 10bb, are we looking to foldout stuff like 99, 88, or AJ, or just looking to setup the overbet shove? Or just give us the options to overbet or check for a free card?
 
I like the 3/4 pot size. I think the more connected the board is the larger we need to size our bets.



I dont know if youre getting AQ to fold here but I do like the jam. I dont think you have another bet size given the SPR.
In person, Villain gave off a read of a weaker hand and he's shown he's capable of folding, so that pushed me towards the jam. He specifically said after he folded that there was too high of a chance I had a queen, so I assume he would not have folded any queen, which might change things.

My read during the hand is that Villain does not protect his checking range (our table as a whole tends to underbluff), and was less likely to have AQ or KQ, and possibly had A10, K10, or A6s.

My current bet sizings are: 1/3 pot for non-straighty non-flushy board & rainbow paired boards, 1/2 pot for straighty rainbow board or flushy non-straighty board, or paired board with flush potential, and 2/3 pot for both straight and flush connectivity.
 
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I think I'm betting something like 10bb on that flop with the equity you have. On the turn card you're setup for either an overbet shove which is going to give him a worse price to call with something like JJ or AK, or you can check back in position and realize all of your equity on the river keeping from putting your stack at risk.
When we check to realize our river equity, and we miss, do you think there is merit to bluffing the river? And if so, does a SPR of between 1-1.5 mean our only bet size is a shove?
 
I figure a 4x 3 bet is about standard for a small blind to fold out the big blind and out of position.

I've been going off Jonathan little's charts, and it seems like for 2.5x sizings K9s is in the smack dab middle of the calling range,. Doing the calculations against 4x BB raise, I think I'm supposed to fold about 40% of my hands here? I think K9s is in the top 60% of my range, but it may be on the edge.
It might be borderline. But those charts are for full stacks and 2.5x opens. You opened to 3x and are facing a 4x+ sized 3 bet leaving you an SPR of 3 to 1. Whereas in a full stack opening 2.5 then 3 bet to 4x, you would be at 4.5 to 1.
 
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It might be borderline. But those charts are for full stacks and 2.5x opens. You opened to 3x and are facing a 4x+ sized 3 bet leaving you an SPR of 3 to 1. Whereas in a fun stack 2.5 to 4x, you would be at 4.5 to 1.
In that case it seems like the aggressive sizings afterward were correct, but I should prefer not to get myself into that situation in the first place.
In retrospect it seems like I was very lucky to get a very favorable board, K9 is not great for straight draws, and even if a King comes out I need to be afraid of being dominated by AK, KQ, KJ, and even KT.

And if an Ace comes out and SB continuation bets I assume I have to fold if I have no flush equity, and even if a king comes out and SB continuation bets I might have to make an exploitative fold.

Now I'm thinking about K9s as a 4 bet bluff in that situation, if it's just slightly too bad to call. e.g. a 2.5x raise size to 30BB. Sounds like a GTO thing to do but would require bravery.
 
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K9 is just hard to play post. If you flop a K and he cbets, you have to call. But then you only have like 1-1.5x pot bets left. Really no room maneuver. It would be easier to play something like 78s. At least then you know you have no showdown value. So you know you need to bluff or make a hand. With K9, you can end up in a lot of guessing situations.
 
After further view of those charts they assume the SB uses a 3.5x sizing on reraise, so it's not as far off as we expected. I think playing gutshots correctly is a bit of a hole in my game right now I need to further study, lucky I had a flush draw to help me this time, because right now I am definitely seeing how hard K9 is to continue preflop. I'm guessing it's a very "crying call hand" you have to keep in your range to prevent from overfolding.
 
After further view of those charts they assume the SB uses a 3.5x sizing on reraise, so it's not as far off as we expected. I think playing gutshots correctly is a bit of a hole in my game right now I need to further study, lucky I had a flush draw to help me this time, because right now I am definitely seeing how hard K9 is to continue preflop. I'm guessing it's a very "crying call hand" you have to keep in your range to prevent from overfolding.
I wouldn't be too concerned about overfolding in a micro live game. Or in any live game up to 2/5 really.
 
I would fold K9s here but hey I'm a nit/fish!
I might call K9s to a BB 3bet which should in theory be wider but I think the SB's 3! range is tighter as she has to get through the BB too.
 
Flop comes out Qc 10d 6d. Pot is 26 BB.
Hero picks up a flush draw and a gutshot. Villain checks. Hero figures if he doesn't bluff this hand he doesn't know what he bluffs and bets 17.5 BB, and villain tanks for a long time and calls.

I think the size is too high but I'm not sure I understand the logic to bring it down. I would personally bet the same size with top pair high kicker/2 pair/sets to charge draws, so I think keeping the same sizes to keep my bluff/value sizes consistent would make sense.
I think you answered your own question. If you are going to value-bet KQ here for example, what sizing do you use? That's the same sizing you should use with your bluffs. I tend to use smaller post flop sizing myself in both cases, but the important thing is being consistent.

As for the play on the flop, this is a weird check out of flow for villain after 3-betting pre. I would dare say it's polarizing. Some of his range is certainly sets, the bottom of his range is probably broadway gutshots (AK, AJ) if he is even somewhat selective about SB 3-bets. I like the flop bet, but I think I hate that villain calls after the out-of-flow check, and that might entice me to take the free pull on the turn after villain checks again. But if I do decide to bet this, I am going to shove for sure with this pot-size. But I think I would need to know villain can lay down a KQ or AQ to this sizing to make this play. I know the read is he has been more selective, but has he tightened up to this point yet?

There are a couple really bad scenarios i can conjure for shoving the turn.
1) Villain has combos of the NFD for sure, AQ, AJ are both certainly going to call and leave hero in dire straits.
2) Villain has KJ. This is less likely unless he is 3-betting wide pre, but he will find the call with this and aside from the OESD, would have the best hand just needing to dodge diamonds and the 3 remaining jacks.

So I think if your question is about sizing, you are good on all streets.

If the question is about what to do on the turn. I am not sure I love the shove, even setting aside the disaster scenarios I laid out, unless I think villain is tight enough to fold some queens here.
 

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